The Sons of Grady Rourke (29 page)

The last man inside closed the door and Sheriff Copeland took his chair—William Brady's chair—behind the desk. Jesse looked puzzled.

“It's a small town, Captain,” Copeland smiled. He was completely calm and looked up at Sean who still had his handiron drawn. “You hardly need that, Deputy Rourke.”

Slowly, Sean put his iron into its holster. The sheriff eyed the bothers.

“This must be Patrick? You have your ma's eyes, boy. Ain't there a third one?”

“At the ranch,” Cyrus said for the brothers.

“Sergeant Buchanan.” The sheriff nodded respectfully. “I rode with Custer, you know, in '68 when we killed Black Kettle on the Washita River. Guess you and I have a lot in common—killing heathens and such as that.”

“I suppose,” Cyrus said with a low voice that carried no pride.

The lawman reached into his pocket and pulled out his watch. Deep lines around his eyes creased when he studied it

“Damn near three.” Copeland put the watch away, looked up at Jesse and shrugged toward Melissa. “I fed her good and kept her blankets clean, boys. She's all yours. Now go on.” He put both hands palms-down on his desk. His gunbelt and sidearm hung conspicuously from a peg on the wall near the open cell.

“Just like that?” Sean was still surprised.

Sheriff Copeland reached for a crumbled piece of paper on his desk. He handed it up to Sean who immediately handed it to Jesse who looked at it for a long moment.

“Peppin?” Jesse laid the telegram back on the desk.

“Effective tomorrow,” Copeland smiled weakly. “Governor Axtell is putting me out to pasture. I should be grateful. What with the House armed to the teeth and them Regulators cooling their heels down San Patricio way. Yes, sir, I should be damned grateful.” Copeland's tranquil gaze stopped at Patrick and then returned to Jesse.

“Well, all right, Sheriff. Come on, Melissa.” Jesse moved sideways so Sean could approach the cell.

Melissa hesitated and looked down at an empty tin plate on the coarse wood floor.

“Let's go, Melissa,” Sean said gently. “Abbey is waiting for you at the ranch.”

Without looking into Sean's face, the woman stood and walked head-bowed into the front office. Her too-big boots flopped against the floor boards.

“Oh, boys,” Copeland said when Jesse opened the front door. The sudden coldness in the cordial man's voice made the hair on Sean's neck bristle. “George Peppin becomes sheriff again, tomorrow morning. But there's more.” The retiring officer stood up with his long arms at his sides. His three-day beard opened into a chilling grin. He faced Patrick squarely and he waited for Patrick to focus on his eyes. “Tell Billy and McSween and them others that Peppin sent for help.” Copeland savored a pause. “John Kinney and his posse is coming to town. Let them Regulators chew on that stew.”

Jesse said nothing. After all, he and Sean still rode with the House and, now, with Sheriff Peppin. But the wind left Patrick's heart in one long breath. Copeland kept grinning.

“Night, boys.”

*         *         *

A
FTER DELIVERING
M
ELISSA
into Abigail's arms before daylight, Sean rode back to Lincoln. Drinking Bonita's coffee and eating her biscuits, he never even wondered if Melissa would have asked him to leave or begged him to stay, if she could speak. Sean knew only that he could not bear to look at her face. Rocking the child on her lap beside the hearth, the firelight played brightly on the woman's face. From across the room, Sean could clearly see new lines around her shining eyes. He had put them there and he could not stay. By full daylight on Tuesday, he was in his lonesome bed at the Wortley Hotel.

TWenty-five hard men rode easily into town from the west on the weekend. Each wore a star pinned to the breast of his trail duster caked with Texas mud. John Kinney led his regiment of rapists directly to George Peppin's office as if he knew the way. Sean watched them pass from his hotel window. He let the curtain fall back against the whitewashed adobe. For two weeks he only left the smoky sanctuary of loud men and cheap whiskey to brush his horse and pick out its feet to prevent a thrush infection from rotting out the hooves of the only real friend he had.

P
ATRICK TOOK TO
Melissa's silent ways. The feelings the blue-eyed woman fired in him made him uncomfortable. If she and Sean were finished, she could not tell him. And without knowing, touching her would be a bitter trespass. When she moved into Abigail's bed, Bonita Ramos moved into Cyrus Buchanan's bed in the greatroom. Patrick bedded down in the barn with Liam rather than trying to sleep in the loft and laying awake all night thinking of Melissa sleeping in the room beneath his floor.

By the time Melissa joined the widening family circle, Liam's hair had grown down to his ears. With his scars covered, he no longer frightened the child who still kept close to Cyrus. Liam spent his time riding the fences or weeding the garden that flourished from what John Chisum's steers left behind. Melissa liked Liam's quiet ways. The pain in his eyes matched her own and a peculiar kinship of silence warmed between them. When Melissa lingered in the garden with Liam, Abigail would help, too. Liam learned to enjoy the child's cheerful company although her heart clearly belonged to Cyrus.

For two weeks, when bedtime came, Abigail would put her head in Melissa's lap by the hearth, which was still needed during the chilly, high-country nights even into the first two weeks of June. Long after Abigail closed her eyes for the last time, Melissa would sit and listen to the night's tall tale, riding blue pipe smoke over Cyrus' head. The mother would watch her daughter sleep and gently stroke her brow. Bonita would rock in the corner in Grady Rourke's chair and watch Cyrus tell his stories.

Patrick welcomed the diversion from thinking about Melissa when Billy Bonney rode casually up the lane on Saturday, June 15th.

“Mr. McSween and Mr. Chisum sent me.” Billy and Patrick walked through the handsome garden to keep distance between them and the women. Bonita welcomed Billy like she would greet a toothache. “Sheriff Peppin is supposed to be rounding up a posse to come down on the Regulators hard. Those Rio Grande boys is riding with him. We need your three guns.”

Patrick knelt and examined the lush green leaves growing near his parents' grave.

“We're like a family out here, Billy. With the House closed up for good, Melissa and Bonita have made a home for themselves here.”

Cyrus and Bonita stood at the front of the house two hundred yards away. Bonita kept looking toward the garden and Cyrus appeared to be comforting her.

“Sort of salt and pepper,” Billy smiled, nodding toward the man and woman.

“It don't matter out here.” Patrick stood up, several inches taller than the scrawny boy. “The Regulators hardly need us. They got plenty of men.”

“Them Rio Grande Posse men ain't like normal shooters. They're stone cold killers, Patrick. You know that. The Regulators is farmers. You know that, too.” Billy sounded anxious. Chisum had sent him to do a job.

“I'm a farmer, too,” Patrick smiled. He liked the idea.

Billy looked down and poked the rich earth with his boot between a row of vegetables. When he looked up, his eyes were narrowed against the brilliant June sunshine.

“You saw what they did to Mr. Tunstall. You remember that? And you was there when we done Morton. You're part of us, Patrick.”

“I never killed no one.”

Billy stifled a smile. He had just won.

“You think John Kinney knows that? You're a Regulator to him and his man-killers. Where you think his posse is going to ride if they make it past us?” Billy looked down the hill toward Bonita who now had Abigail under her arm. Melissa stood behind the child. “You know what the Rio Grande Posse does to womenfolk?”

When Billy turned to face Patrick, the eyes which met his were hard and cold. They were the eyes Billy had been sent to find.

“When?”

“Now.”

Patrick shook his head slowly as his mind rejected every argument shouting between his ears.

“I'll talk to Cyrus.”

“And Liam.”

“Liam's fighting days is over. He can guard the women.”

Billy shrugged. “It won't make no difference where he gets skinned alive if we can't hold them.”

Patrick led Billy back to the house. Bonita glared coldly at him and he never allowed their eyes to meet. When Bonita made supper, she dropped a plate in front of Billy so hard that gravy splashed onto the table.

After they had eaten, all four men adjourned to the barn on the pretext of checking the animals.

“Your woman don't much take to me,” Billy said to Cyrus in the privacy of the barn.

“She don't mean no harm.”

Billy repeated his story for Liam and Cyrus. His description of the El Paso rapes was so vivid that Billy licked his lips when he was done. Patrick wondered if Billy missed being there to help the Rio Grande Posse.

“I'll go,” Liam said suddenly.

“You ain't fighting no posse,” Cyrus protested.

“I'll go,” the young ex-soldier repeated. “I seen what men like that do to women and children.” Liam looked at Cyrus whose mind flooded quickly with red memories. “You seen it, Cyrus.”

“What about the women here?” Patrick could not force from his brain the picture of Melissa under John Kinney—Patrick had slept in the barn for two weeks to stop thinking about Melissa under him. It did not work. “Someone has to stay here.”

“I'm going,” Liam said dryly. Patrick almost shuddered at the wild look in his brother's haunted eyes. “Sergeant, you stay here.”

“No, sir. That ain't right. I ain't hiding behind no women's skirts. No, sir.”

Cyrus drew himself up and squared his shoulders. He was broader than any two of the three men in front of him.

“Which of us can hold off an army by hisself?” Billy asked, grinning broadly. He was amazed at his own mental powers.

Patrick, Billy, and Liam watched Cyrus wrestle with the question.

“Well?” Patrick smiled, not quite as brightly as Billy.

Cyrus looked at the ground. “All right.”

Billy nodded. “Maybe now Bonita won't throw food in my lap.”

O
N
T
UESDAY
, J
UNE
18th, Patrick and Liam had been at San Patricio for two full days. Patrick mingled freely with the Regulators while Liam kept either to Patrick or to himself. He brought his own demons with him and they were all the company he required.

That same day, George Peppin collected twenty men from town to join the Rio Grande Posse. Twenty-nine black troopers from Fort Stanton still patrolled Lincoln's single street. Susan McSween welcomed their protection as she struggled to manage the Tunstall store on her own without help from her husband, or David Shield, or Billy.

Sheriff Peppin kept his private army camped near the courthouse so they would not trigger any hard words with the soldiers.

Cyrus Buchanan tolerated the company of two women and the little girl for a full week. By the 28th, he had gone as long as he could without hearing from Patrick or Liam.

“I'll come back, woman, if I have to crawl.”

Bonita said nothing. Tears ran down her cheeks and splashed on the front porch. Abigail stood under Melissa's arm which held her close.

Cyrus handed two loaded, lever-action rifles to Bonita who took one in each hand.

“You know how to use these. There be more cartridges in the box on the mantle.”

Bonita sniffed hard. Cyrus looked at her contorted face and then at Melissa and Abigail. He looked over his shoulder and pointed at the lane running past the barn and on into Lincoln.

“You just keep an eye on that road. I'll be coming down it real soon.”

Cyrus touched Bonita's wet face and turned quickly toward his saddled horse tied to the fence surrounding the house. Chisum cattle grazed contentedly behind his mount.

Halfway to his restless animal, Cyrus felt a thump against his back. He turned to find Abigail with her arms wide and her face as wet as Bonita's. The child disappeared for a full minute inside his smothering hug.

Cyrus thought about the home he was leaving for the whole ride to Lincoln. Half a mile from town, the road was blocked by two mounted columns of cavalry. A corporal led the black troopers. The soldiers riding slowly west headed toward Cyrus.

The two-striper raised his gloved hand and the troopers halted in the sun.

“Sergeant Buchanan.”

“Corporal.”

“We've been recalled to the fort, Sergeant. New regulations have come out from the War Department. We can't take no part in civilian peace-keeping no more without there's an armed rebellion. No more
posse comitatus
for the Army. So Colonel Dudley's called us back.”

“What about them Rio Grande boys?”

“They're still in town, Sergeant. Riding for Sheriff Peppin. Damned dangerous, if you want my opinion.”

Cyrus reined his horse back. The animal was nervous around so many cavalry mounts.

The proud soldier lifted his hat to Cyrus who wore his faded blue blouse with the gold stripes on the sleeve.

“With my respects, Sergeant.”

“With my compliments,” the ex-soldier smiled, lifting his hat to return the military courtesy. The troopers pressed forward and rode westward.

Cyrus spurred his horse into a slow walk toward Lincoln which was now protected by an army of Texas rapists and a posse owned by Jimmy Dolan.

“M
AYBE THERE'LL BE FIREWORKS FOR THE FOURTH
.”

Sean lifted his glass, drained it, and waited for another. Manuel exchanged it for a full one. Cyrus nursed the same drink for half an hour.

“Might be,” the soldier said. He looked up when Jesse Evans entered the cantina at midday, July 3rd. Cyrus lifted his half-full shot glass and held it in front of his face.